Hazard

Pointing lasers at aircraft can cost pilots their lives. The FAA has decided to increase the penalty. This prank is to cost the offenders a hefty fine – up to $11,000. Some pen-shaped laser pointers have been reported around a thousand times in the USA in 2011, and 2,836 incidents were reported last year.

It may seem a harmless prank. However, when a laser pen user aims at an aircraft, it turns into a dangerous hazard as the laser light is reflected everywhere. When the beams re reflected into the pilots’ eyes, the can get blind, and cause a crash.

12:4808/06/2011Russian air transport regulator Rosaviatsiya noted on Wednesday an increase in cases of pilots being blinded by laser pens during landing at Russian airports, with 30 such incidents registered this year.>>

It is not uncommon for aircraft to be struck by lightning but this super heavy Emirates Airbus A380 got hit by a jagged bolt of lightning right over the pilot’s seats.

A huge amount of electric energy must have passed through the airframe of the aircraft during its approach at London Heathrow last week. Amazingly the commercial aircraft escaped damage, and nobody was hurt.

Is it any wonder this airplane may sustain such a stress in a clap of thunder? The size and the nature of the A380 airframe seems to be the right solution to such hazards. Thanks to its thick metal structure, the plane behaved as a perfect Faraday cage:

Japanese officials have just confirmed a radiation leak at Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. A radiation level of 1,015 Î¼Sv/h (mircrosieverts per hour) has been measured near the plant before the blast. The situation is deemed almost as serious as the Three Mile Island partial reactor meltdown in the 70s, and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Cesium would have been detected. Therefore, the reactor number one might be having a meltdown.

The U.S. is sending special coolant. Four workers have been injured. The cordoned-off area has been widened to a 20km-radius zone. The roof of the reactor would have collapsed in the aftermath of the explosion. A scram (shutdown) might not be achieved on another reactor because of a glitch in the emergency cooling system.